


freeze frame

by broship_addict, syari



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coming Out, Demisexual Neil Josten, First Meetings, Ft. Neil's Sass, Kevin is Kevin frequently, M/M, Neil's Bandana is a character in its own right, Photographer!Andrew, Professional Exy (All For The Game), Smoking, aftg reverse bang 2019, exy player!Neil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 07:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18048605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broship_addict/pseuds/broship_addict, https://archiveofourown.org/users/syari/pseuds/syari
Summary: Andrew is a sports photographer with terrible coworkers, Neil is a professional Exy player who mixes reporters' tears with his electrolytes, Nicky thinks Andrew needs a boyfriend, and Kevin just wants to stop ending up as their third wheel.





	freeze frame

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the AFTG Reverse Bang and in particular for the amazing art by [broship_addict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broship_addict)!

 

Fucking Exy.

Andrew spared another thought for whatever forces in the universe had led him to this point, crammed in a mass of people all shouting inane questions at a few athletes with fewer brain cells than concussions to their name. He wasn’t a violent person (and he imagined Aaron’s face if his brother heard _that_ particular thought), but he still had half a mind to kick out the knees of his idiot coworker.

If it would have had the dual effect of allowing him to get a decent picture and being able to do his job without being hindered by giants blocking his view, he’d consider that a bonus. Honestly, with the sensationalist style Matthews favored, it was a wonder no one had tried it already.

As he contemplated sweet vengeance, number 10 from the home team emerged from the stadium, shoulders tense, the bright lights making his auburn hair light up like a beacon. _Neil Josten_ , Andrew’s steel-trap brain supplied, corroborated by the name emblazoned on his chest and the sudden cacophony of reporters all shouting his name at once. Starting striker, marked for Court by all accounts, and a known instigator.

Andrew didn’t care about any of that. He focused his camera on Josten’s face, moving only to avoid an elbow to his face by his horrible, overeager coworker. Quietly, he entertained a brief moment of fantasizing about feeding the idiot said elbow. Unfortunately, Wymack would probably have something to say about it if Matthews found himself suddenly unable to wield microphones obnoxiously to harass athletes. Andrew thought it could only improve their standard of reporting.

“Neil! Neil Josten, what do you have to say in response to Riko Moriyama’s comments on your team’s chances of—”

“Hey.” Josten thumped his finger twice, casually, on the microphone shoved in front of his easy grin. “Is this thing working?”

Matthews cleared his throat. “Neil, what do you think of—"

He was cut off again by a loud scoff. “Yeah, I think that if you spent a little more time thinking for yourself rather than making asinine comments fishing for drama, you’d realize my team’s performance tonight speaks for itself. Do you have any questions related to the game, or were you totally incapable of recognizing the event you’re attending as well as incompetent?”

Andrew had enough self-control to stop the smirk threatening to spread across his face (unlike Matthews, whose jaw was hanging so low it might have been dislocated by the verbal battery). He snapped off a couple more photographs, capturing the flash of shark’s teeth turned on the crowd of vultures, tracking the single drop of sweat winding its way down Josten’s clenched jaw, and sneaking in a surreptitious one of his coworker still agape just to be able to savor the moment properly later.

Maybe he could care about stickball and uppity jocks if this was his reward, he thought. (Or to be more accurate, his mind treacherously supplied: hot damn.)

And if Andrew noticed how the sweat-damped bandana Josten used to tie back his hair set off his sparkling eyes brilliantly while he tore the other unwise reporters to shreds, what of it? It was a purely professional artistic observation.

—

Unlike Andrew, Nicky was not a professional.

“Wow. Your pics get better all the time, little cuz.” Nicky dangled half-off the small couch, angling his head just far enough to see his laptop screen. “Or maybe just the subjects, damn. I can’t believe you get to meet all the cute jocks, how is that fair?”

Andrew ignored him, barely glancing at the red curls bright above the latest article. The screen lighting didn’t do them justice, anyways.

He blinked. The thought lingered like a bad aftertaste, lending a bit of extra force to closing the laptop screen over Nicky’s complaints. “Don’t you have a boyfriend you can annoy?”

He let the excited rambling wash over him as he settled in. Not that he would ever let on, but he would miss this when Nicky left for Germany in a few months. Somewhere between a career and a home, a family, he had grown to embrace routine, and Nicky’s chatter certainly was that.

Still, Nicky would be happier with Erik, no longer having to fuss over Andrew. Aaron had already flown the nest and complained endlessly about the mandatory Facetime sessions Nicky enforced, which Andrew had a sneaking dread he would soon be roped into. If medical school wasn’t a valid excuse for Aaron to skip, he doubted that his work would bear any weight.

Still, if Nicky brought up his dating life one more time...

He was saved from his train of thought and his cousin’s ramblings by the doorbell promising pizza. After tipping the delivery girl generously he plopped the boxes directly on top of the laptop on the coffee table, willing to risk the grease stains if it prevented Nicky from having any more bright ideas. He was still scarred from the last Wikipedia rabbit hole they’d fallen down, and his work life was off the table. Which meant—

“Seriously, Andrew. You need friends, people to talk to when I’m gone. Aaron says you never call him outside of family time.”

Aaron was a traitor who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “I have Kevin.”

Nicky sighed. “You can’t even say that with a straight face. He has two topics of conversation, maximum, and you’ve banned one of them already. You need to branch out, meet new people!” He smirked, face taking on a quality that Andrew’s self-preservation instinct did not care for in the slightest.

He wished, just for a second, to have his knives back. He examined the urge at arm’s length and let it go. Bee would say healing was a process, after all, and didn’t he know that intimately.

Unfortunately, Nicky took his inch of silence and ran a mile. “You should date someone.” Seemingly immune to Andrew’s glare of death, he waved his arms, one hand clutching a pizza slice at risk of slinging its toppings all over the floor. “Seriously, you meet so many cute guys every day, there must be someone.”

“I don’t need your help. And I do not. Need. To date.” He swore his neighbors could hear his teeth grinding. Maybe it would pay them back for keeping him up until 3 am the night before while they were drunkenly moving furniture.

His cousin seemed to deflate before his eyes, suddenly thin and tired. It was almost enough to niggle at him, to make him feel guilt at blocking Nicky out, even if he would never feel bad enough to let himself be controlled.

“Just... Find someone other than Kevin, yeah? It might be good for you.”

A few years ago, he would have fought until bloody to avoid giving an inch of ground. Today, though, he was stretched thin and raw. Regrouping might be his best defense. “I’ll try.”

Nicky’s smile was soft, real. “That’s all I ask.” Then the usual grin blew back full force, and his cousin opened his mouth to say something Andrew just knew would be outrageous, so he practiced his aim instead.

The wasted pepperoni was worth the outraged sputter when it hit Nicky on the forehead, leaving a greasy smear and derailing the evening successfully.

 

—

The thought lingered, though, long after Andrew’s apartment had been slowly emptied of the life his cousin breathed into it. If Andrew had been asked to describe his life in a few words, he would have said nothing. The truth might have been a little closer to a hard-won peace that sometimes pressed too close on the edges of quiet.

Discomfited, he turned over in his rumpled bed, fingers tracing the curve of the single blade Renee had insisted he keep. He doubted she had meant it to live under his pillow, but it was better than under his skin. It was usually even more satisfying to see it embedded in the doorframe with an aim honed of enough repetitions to make his doctor warn him off trying to develop arthritis at thirty, but tonight it just left him bereft the moment the knife left his fingers.

He dressed quickly in his favorite outfit, fingers slipping over intentionally frayed hems and buckles as he hummed tunelessly, already anticipating the bone-deep thrum of Eden’s Twilight. It was about the only place in the city where being recognized came with perks rather than the inane babble of sports talk. He flicked the blade in the doorframe as he passed it on his way out, enjoying the vibrating thrum of the handle in his bones.

Four shots later, he began to regret many things, not the least of which was the unexpected shock of bright red hair shining under the flares of neon lights. Number 10, Neil Josten stood with his hip pressed into the bar, scarred cheek pulled tight by a smile Andrew swore should be banned under the Geneva Convention right alongside the rips in his jeans.

It almost made him wish that Kevin, annoying as he was, was there to act as distraction and buffer from the man’s detested on-court rival. As it was, Kevin was at home with Thea happily two years sober, and Andrew was left to snark at their companionable bliss only in daylight. He was also left at the mercy of Neil Josten’s sharp smile and sharper tongue.

“Andrew Minyard,” Josten shifted a fraction closer, so their arms lined up on the suspiciously shiny bar surface, black armbands against brown skin punctuated by regular scarring. “I’m a big fan of your work.”

“Do I know you?” Andrew deadpanned. It was a clear _fuck off_ in sky writing. Apparently Josten couldn’t read.

“Mm. Probably not.” A sharktooth grin. “Neil.”

Andrew snorted. “You should be so lucky.” He watched with unwilling interest as a dusky pink diffused over Josten’s smirk, now turned sheepish. That was dangerous.

“That’s not--” Josten coughed and nodded towards the pack of cigarettes resting by Andrew’s elbow. “Fancy a smoke?”

“I don’t smoke,” Andrew lied blatantly.

Josten’s smirk spread back across his face, a terrible thing to behold. “What a coincidence. Neither do I.”

Five minutes and a knowing look from Roland later, they were side by side again, backs pressed against the typically grimy wall around the side of the club. Andrew exhaled a cloud of smoke, eyes aching from its sting and the leftover throb of neon imprints on his retinas.

“My name.”

Head tilted back, Andrew flicked an eyebrow at his new shadow, rewarded by a breath of air that might have been a chuckle or a sigh for as much as he cared to know.

In the halogen glow, Josten’s hair framed his face and cast shadows down his cheeks, blurring his sharp lines into hazy planes. “Neil is my name. I didn’t mean…”

“I know what your name is.”

“And you let me think you thought i was propositioning you anyway?” The words were acerbic but humor-laden, as though they were sharing a private joke between them. Andrew hated him a little.

“I can’t help my raw animal magnetism to stickball jocks,” Andrew drawled lowly, the words gravel in his throat.

Josten’s laugh was even lower, smoky despite him having yet to put his burning cigarette to his lips. “Is that why Kevin Day follows you around like a puppy?”

Andrew’s humor was suddenly cold, leaving him chilled and so very alert, his hand achingly empty of steel. “I didn’t know you paid so much attention to either of us.”

“He’s my rival on the court, and Matt keeps sending me the pictures you take of me at the games.” Josten tapped a bit of ash off with his fingertip, holding it close to inhale the smoke.

“Matt?”

“My best friend. I was here with him and his fianceè earlier, but they said I needed to make friends and sent me off to socialize with strangers, the traitors. You were my safest bet.”

Andrew scoffed at the thought. “Tragic.”

Josten hummed, a half-pleased grin flitting around his mouth like it wasn’t sure how to land. “He’s the one you can thank for me knowing your name. You’re the photographer that works with that awful reporter. Matthews?”

His earlier judgement was reversed. Josten could read after all, though it hardly took more than a third-grade reading level to sort through Matthews’ drivel pieces. “I took a picture,” he confessed, “When you tore his ego into bite-sized pieces. My finest work, and yours.”

Josten hummed, eyes bright even in the gloom. “I’d pay good money to see that. Or,” he mused, “I suppose I could just… do it again.”

Andrew was silent a moment. “That might be the first intelligent idea to come out of your mouth tonight.” He blew out a steady stream of smoke, contemplating. “I have someone you should meet.”

—

Josten slid into the seat across the table from Andrew, cutting off Kevin’s lecture and leaving Kevin to gape at him in shock. “Am I late?”

Andrew gazed boredly at his wrist as though to check the time. He wasn’t wearing a watch, but no one questioned him. “Do I care?”

Kevin sputtered. “I’m sorry? What are you doing here?”

Affecting a casual posture, Josten slumped low in his chair, tipping Kevin’s tea-filled mug with a single fingertip and coming dangerously close to dumping its contents in the much taller man’s lap. “It’s a coffee shop. Last time I checked, they didn’t require an RSVP to attend.”

“Neil,” Kevin pressed, and oh, that was interesting. “What do you want.”

“Kevin,” _Neil_ snarked back, busy taking the sugar packets out and trying to pour them into Kevin’s tea. Kevin batted his hand away, practically seething.

“Donkey,” Andrew muttered. Neither of the strikers paid him any mind, too caught up in whatever weird stare-down dominance ritual they were performing.

Kevin straightened abruptly at whatever conclusion he managed to reach in the few seconds of silence. Andrew supposed his brain must have sparked something in the friction of the strain of prolonged thought. “Since you are here, though, I’ve watched your games. You could stand to improve your aim on the court. Have you considered a heavier racket?”

“I don’t play Exy,” Neil said flippantly. Andrew watched the exchange as one might the impending apocalypse with the closest thing he might have come to glee since Kevin actually burst a blood vessel in practice yelling at his team. The other man wore quite a similar face now.

From the perch of indifference on which he weathered the storm of Kevin’s barely coherent tirade, Neil shot Andrew a quick smile, uncharacteristically soft, only visible for a second before he schooled his face back into the innocent confusion that only redoubled Kevin’s frustrations.

Oh, thought Andrew. That was something.

That had promise.

—

Andrew was of the humble opinion that the Exy stadiums should be able to deny press passes to absolute imbeciles. Sadly, the proof was before him that, if anything, a reverse policy was likely in effect.

There was one bright spot, however. One bright, shiny auburn spot, highlighted by a brilliant blue bandana and enough snark to poison a rather hearty houseplant.

“Josten! Will Ali’s shoulder injury affect his prospects for finishing out this season?”

Neil swayed close to the mic, drawn in by gravity and the inevitable resurgence of his own stupidity. “Well, you see, something like a shoulder injury in a sport that relies on having two functioning arms would generally tend to affect one’s prospects. I can understand your confusion, though, since in your own profession an arm injury that prevented you from working could only improve the quality of your journal.”

The reporter’s face bore a rather strong resemblance to that of an unfortunately squash-nosed cat. Neil had already moved on to his next victim, though, having spotted Matthews in his position far too close to Andrew for any sort of peace of mind. The light in his eyes might have been the last of the high from the game or the sense of his impending additional victories, but either way Andrew took full advantage of it to record the moment for posterity as well as for his paycheck.

Matthews, the absolute buffoon, must have been born without a primal danger response or any capacity for long-term memory storage. “Neil, can you comment on the recent story about your teammate Alvarez coming out? Is it a publicity stunt?”

Andrew edged away from Matthews slowly. Neil’s smile could have cut glass.

“Shockingly, someone being authentically themselves in the public eye is not automatically a publicity stunt. Is every heteronormative question about the personal lives of athletes a publicity stunt? That might just explain why you seem to ask so many, if you can’t attain any sort of notice on your own merits.”

Neil started to turn away in disgust, then paused, pivoting back to stare into Matthews’ terrified eyes. “It is interesting that you would ask me that and not, say, Alvarez or Dermott. You know, the first pro Exy athletes to come out as partners? Maybe if you actually listened to members of the LGBT+ community when they raised their voices on vital issues rather than dismissing them, you’d actually learn something outside your narrow expertise. Well, if it can even be called that given your overt asininity.”

Bliss. Sweet bliss. Matthews actually emitted a small noise like a gasping fish. Andrew took three more pictures of his face as he fumbled for words in Neil’s devastating wake.

He took a few more pictures of Neil, too, catching in his viewfinder for just an instant the slightest wink Neil sent him before taking another question. That one wouldn’t be published.

It had been meant for him alone.

—

“You can’t smoke here.”

Andrew pointed a finger at Neil and spoke around the somewhat squashed cigarette clamped between his lips. “ _You_ can’t smoke here. I have a permit.”

“Does it perhaps say ‘I do what I want?’” Neil’s eyes were bright and so, so blue. Unfair. “Besides, I don’t smoke. My manager would kill me,” he added as an afterthought, scuffing his trainer along the pavement.

“But she still lets you speak after games? Smoking only hurts you, but you’re a hazard to your entire team’s reputation.”

“Ever heard of secondhand smoke?” Neil shrugged, languid and loose. “It’s in our contracts. We all have a mandated number of press appearances, part of some PR initiative. They pretty much only put me on for the home game press. Danai told me she only wants to risk entirely alienating one group of people if she can help it.”

Andrew huffed. “You should ask her about having your contract renegotiated. I’m sure she’d leap at the opportunity.”

“But then who would make reporters cry for you?” Neil batted his eyelashes, voice saccharine.

“You say the sweetest things.”

“I’ll try another, then.” Scarred fingers reached out to hover over Andrew’s shoulder, hesitant enough that Andrew didn’t instinctively try his best to break them. “Can I kiss you?”

Andrew blew smoke out over Neil’s extended arm, watching dimples slip away on Neil’s sober face. “We barely know each other.”

“Don’t we? That’s not a no.”

“It’s not a yes, either.”

Neil nodded, pulling his hand back to clutch at his jersey hem almost absentmindedly yet with an overabundance of care. “All right.”

“Don’t tell Kevin,” Andrew said idly, contemplating the twisted jersey fabric. He wondered what it would be like to hook his finger into Neil’s collar, pull him close, see his eyes spark and widen. “He’s got this whole diatribe about how being openly gay hurts your Exy image.”

“I’m not gay.” Neil’s brow furrowed. “Besides, I thought Kevin was bisexual.”

“Well, don’t tell him that, either. He’d be even more unbearable than usual.”

—

Nicky’s screech coming from his laptop’s feeble speakers made Andrew wince, fingers itching for the mute button. “Who is _that_?”

From behind Andrew’s shoulder, Neil looked up from his own laptop on the couch. “Oh. Hi. I’m Neil.”

“Andrew,” Nicky whined, “Who is he?”

“He just told you. He’s Neil.” Neil looked back up and gave a little half-wave, still engrossed in his ridiculous Exy game recordings.

“Oh my god, what? He’s adorable. You can’t do this to me! Give me warning the next time you have your boyfriend over.” Nicky gave a salacious eyebrow wiggle. “I have to say, when I told you to meet new people, I didn’t think you’d… wait, _is_ he new?” Leaning into the screen, Nicky gave a weird squint.

Andrew shifted an inch to the side to block Neil out from the little front-facing view box on the side of the screen. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“He’s in your apartment. On your couch. You barely even let me sit on your couch,” Nicky pouted.

“That’s because you don’t sit on it properly. You’ll ruin the arms.”

“I’m gay! Gay people don’t have to sit right!”

“Oh, are you gay? I had no idea. You hadn’t mentioned it at all today.” Andrew scoffed at Nicky’s outraged grumble. “How’s Erik?”

Nicky’s eyes went unfocused and dreamy even through the screen. “He’s great. He’s having a busy time at work, but he might be up for a promotion, I’m so proud.” He sat up straighter for a second. “Oh, did I tell you we’re getting a dog? She’s a little golden lab. We get to bring her home next week after she gets spayed, but I can barely wait, we’re so excited!”

“That’s good,” Andrew said, and meant it. Nicky’s smile grew.

“You know, you could come visit and see her, any time you want. We’d help with the tickets, if you needed. I’d love to see you.” Nicky’s voice dropped lower, conspiratorial. “You could bring Neil.”

“Neil’s busy. He has to finish his season before he could travel anywhere.” It wasn’t an outright denial.

Nicky’s mouth dropped open. “He’s an Exy player! No, wait— Andrew! He’s that one you took the pictures of! You’re dating an Exy player? I can’t even process this. You hate Exy.”

“We’re not dating, and I hate him, too. It works out.”

“You hate me?” Neil said interestedly from behind him. Andrew waved him off.

“Neil, honey, blink twice if you need help, I’ll protect yo—” Nicky’s voice cut off as Andrew closed his laptop, yawning pointedly.

Neil hummed. “Your cousin seems interesting.”

“You seemed interesting once, too. First appearances can be deceiving.”

“Interesting enough to hate?” Neil’s voice was light but off somehow. He had closed his laptop when Andrew had done the same, and his fingers fiddled with the case.

“Only 90% of the time.” Andrew stood, placing his laptop on the coffee table and taking Neil’s from him to place on top. Neil’s hand trailed in its wake, uncertain.

“And the other 10%?”

With a low sigh, Andrew settled in on the too-small couch, noting how Neil automatically made just enough room for him that they wouldn’t be touching. He reached out and tugged Neil’s shirt collar, making Neil’s eyes widen just a fraction. “Yes or no?”

“What— oh. Yes.” Sitting up a little more, Neil reached out for him and then paused. “May I?”

Andrew’s breath ghosted over Neil’s lower lip, making the other man shiver almost imperceptibly. “Don’t touch my back.”

Neil nodded once. “I won’t.” His hand sunk onto Andrew’s shoulder, warm to the bone, and Andrew kissed him: once, twice, again. He tasted of the stolen sip of Andrew’s sugared coffee he had immediately scrunched up his nose at, and Andrew breathed a near laugh into his mouth.

“91%.”

Neil grinned, lopsided and lazy. “What do I get if I reach 100%?” His finger trailed down Andrew’s covered collarbone, and Andrew tightened his fist in Neil’s shirt.

“If you shut up, maybe you’ll find out.”

—

Kevin snapped his mouth shut, cutting himself off. Looking between Andrew and Neil, he frowned. Hesitated. Opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Use your words, Kevin,” Neil encouraged in a sing-song voice, flicking a folded piece of paper napkin at the gap between the salt and pepper shakers. Andrew swatted it away before it passed between them as he had done every time so far.

“Don’t tell him that. He’ll never stop again.” Andrew faked a yawn even as he fielded Neil’s next increasingly desperate shot on goal. “Did you need to go to the restroom again? I told you all those smoothies are bad for you.”

Kevin floundered visibly, forced to derail his train of thought. “No.”

“Oh good, we’re fine then,” Andrew said with a wide, fake grin. Kevin’s teeth ground audibly, making Neil wince.

“You two.” Kevin started again then paused, shifting.

“Us two?” Neil prompted in his best too-innocent voice. Andrew let Neil’s next napkin ball fly between the shakers just to see the grin of victory light up his eyes and flush his cheeks. His motive was purely altruistic, of course. It wouldn’t do to let him get discouraged.

“You’re not… I mean, you aren’t...” Kevin shook his head. “You know, gay athletes—”

Neil let out a loud crow of success, startling Kevin out of finishing his sentence. He held his hand out to Andrew, who grudgingly pressed a $20 bill into it with excessive force. “Kevin’s smoothies are on me.”

“Do not. He doesn’t need any more.”

“This is serious,” Kevin burst out. “It could ruin your image. Sponsorship deals, trading prospects, contract terms? This could really hurt you. Both of you,” he added, shooting a glance at Andrew which was brushed off easily.

Neil patted Kevin on the arm reassuringly, as one might an elderly relative convinced of the evils of technology. “Believe it or not, Day, some of us have lives that don’t just revolve around a sport.”

“Liar,” Andrew coughed, which Neil magnanimously ignored to smile at Kevin benignly.

Discomfited, Kevin cleared his throat. “I just want you to be sure you know what you’re doing before anything… drastic happens.”

“Why, Kevin,” Neil gasped, “I would never do anything drastic. You know me.”

Kevin fixed him with the beadiest eye Andrew had ever seen him give, reluctantly impressive. “I do know you. Why do you think I’m worried?”

“You say the sweetest things,” Neil purred. “See, ‘Drew? He does care.” Andrew might have destroyed him for the nickname had it not been for the way Kevin immediately choked on air in response. That made up for quite a lot.

—

“I’m gay,” Andrew announced, dropping the envelope of photographs into the “In” tray.

Wymack fixed him with a look from behind his fossilized desktop computer. “And?”

“And your son seems to think that would hurt my career if it came to light.” He dropped into Wymack’s purposefully uncomfortable guest chair, kicking his shoes up on the editor’s desk with ease of practice. “Thoughts?”

“Christ,” Wymack muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You know you’ll always have a place here. Frankly, your work’s exceptional, though it’s a goddamn miracle considering your piss-poor work ethic.” His face softened under its harsh lines. “You’d have a place here even if it weren’t.”

“Aw, Coach, you old sap. You’ll make me cry,” Andrew snickered. “Speaking of, though. Have you fired Matthews yet?”

“Being universally disliked isn’t a fireable offense. You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“Why, Coach, whatever do you mean? I’m likeable. I thought I always had a place here?” Andrew put on his best innocent face while tipping over the old mug filled with pencils that read WORLD’S OKAYEST DAD.

Wymack waved him away irritably. “Get out of my office, midget.” Andrew saluted him mockingly as he stood. “You’re coming to dinner tonight, right? Abby will hunt you down, I’ve seen her do it. It’s not pretty.”

Andrew hummed. “Bee still coming?”

“You know she is.” Wymack fixed him with a knowing eye. “You can bring Neil, if you want.”

“How— I’m going to kill Kevin.”

“Not at dinner, you aren’t. Abby will kill _me_.”

“Not my problem, old man.” Andrew easily dodged the pencil half-heartedly tossed in his direction and slipped out the door.

—

Neil was tucked into the corner of the kitchen, watching Abby tease Kevin goodnaturedly with a distant look on his face. Andrew pressed in, sliding a hand around the back of his neck, watching as his eyes refocused and turned fully to Andrew. “Your family is nice.”

Andrew snorted. “Your judgement is impaired.” He looked carefully at Neil, cataloguing the tension in his face. “You don’t like Bee.”

“It’s not that I don’t like her, I just don’t trust…” Neil waved a hand generally. “Psychiatrists. Being analyzed. Watched.”

“A man can only have so many issues. Yes or no?”

Neil snapped to attention, flushing. “Here?”

“Just touching.”

Still looking a bit dazed, Neil nodded, then said, “Yes.” Andrew reached out with the hand not on Neil’s neck, catching his hand and squeezing it.

“Oh,” Neil said. “That’s nice.” He squeezed back tentatively.

“Shut up,” Andrew said, and led him out of the kitchen. “Bee’s nice, too.”

Neil swung their hands together as Andrew opened the back door, pulling them out onto the porch and into the humid South Carolina evening. “I can be nice.”

“Good.”

“She’s important to you.” It wasn’t a question. Andrew considered the line of Neil’s throat. A sign of vulnerability. He nodded, once.

Neil looked up, meeting his eyes too earnestly. “Then I’ll be nice.”

“You’ve overused it. The word no longer has meaning.”

“You used it too.”

“Shut up.” For once, Neil did, leaving him free to smile obnoxiously at Andrew. He’d allow it, this one time.

—

That damned bandana. Andrew swore he was going to burn it. It practically amounted to public indecency, really; he’d be doing the world a favor.

Neil’s eyes sought him out over the heads of the crowd, smile rippling his cheeks and turning several innocent bystanders to mush, though Andrew debated whether the word ‘innocent’ could really be applied to reporters. “Since we’re going off topic from the actual game, let’s talk about homophobia in sports.”

The man with the microphone shoved in Neil’s face looked taken aback. “Er, I actually asked if—”

Neil cut him off easily. “I heard you the first time, but given that it’s a stupid question, I’ve elected to ignore it. The culture of silence around same-sex relationships in Exy as well as other sports is frankly damaging, and I won’t help perpetuate it.” Confused voices rose up around him, and Neil had to raise his voice to a near shout to be heard. “I’m dating a man, I’m demisexual, and I am not taking any disrespectful questions on it. That’s all.”

Ignoring the fever-pitch roar of the crowd in Neil’s wake, Andrew dutifully captured a few snapshots of what was likely to go down as a moment in Exy history, or whatever (and oh, he could hear the sweet music of Kevin’s teeth grinding at that thought. The man’s dentist must make a fortune). He clipped his lens cap back on, blocked out Matthews’ burbling, and went to find Neil.

He found him loitering, of all places, leaned against the hood of Andrew’s car wearing a shit-eating grin. Andrew longed to wipe it off his mouth, but settled for hooking his finger into Neil’s collar. Neil let him, edges softening as he let himself be pulled in a fraction.

“That was stupid.” They both ignored the flashes of light going off in the background. Andrew felt strangely free of consequences, and that was stupid, too.

Neil laughed. “Maybe. It felt good, though. Are you done? There’s a crime documentary I wanted to watch, if you want.” His damp hair was weighed down almost enough to brush past the ends of his ears. Andrew did not tug it.

“Get in, then. I’ll take you home.”

Neil’s smile faltered, then slowly crept back into its full glory, one crooked tooth poking unbearably into his lip as he nodded. “Alright. Home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Excerpt from the Kevin-Andrew-Neil groupchat:
> 
> Kevin: Neil, I saw you eating that ice cream with Andrew. You’re ruining your diet.  
> Neil: whos neil
> 
> \--
> 
> A massive thank you to Gabriella for moderating this challenge and answering all my panicked first-timer questions; to Meghan for the incredible prompt I fell in love with and for being a joy to work with; and to [crescentlunae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentlunae), who despite not even being in this fandom proofread this fic and dragged me to the finish line. Much love <3
> 
> come chat on [tumblr](https://podmore.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
